Tempted
by Ghislaine Emrys
Summary: A young Hannibal Heyes is punished for stealing but doesn't learn his lesson until he talks with his cousin.


_I can resist everything except temptation._

_- Oscar Wilde_

"Hannibal Heyes, what are you doing?" The angry voice surprised him and he dropped the half-eaten biscuit back onto the plate on the table, then stood staring down at his feet as the woman approached him.

"Nothing." He kept his eyes on the floor. He knew there was more to come.

"I cooked those biscuits special for our guests. Now, there won't be enough for everyone. If you were hungry, all you had to do was tell me and I'd give you something. You know that, don't you, dear?" Her voice was gentle now and that only made him feel worse.

"Yes'm," he mumbled.

"Is there anything you want to say to me?"

"No, ma'am. I mean, I'm sorry, ma."

His mother looked at her eleven-year old son searchingly. Recently, he'd been getting into lots of mischief, and dragging his cousin Jed along with him. She sighed, not sure how to handle her oldest child, but wanting him to know that the reason he was going to be punished was because she loved him and wanted him to grow up right. "Hannibal, you know I have to tell your father about this, don't you?"

The dark-haired head came up sharply. She noted the unhappy look in the brown eyes, those big, luminous eyes that all her friends said looked just like hers. She knelt down so she could look at her son directly. "Hannibal, I don't know what's gotten into you lately, but you are not behaving the way your father and I raised you. We want only the best for you, dear. Now go upstairs and finish your schoolwork. We'll talk about this after dinner."

Despondent, the boy trudged over to the ladder and climbed up to the loft. He sat on his bed but did not open any of the books lying on the nearby make-shift table. He leaned back against the wall and tried to figure out what his punishment would be.

==0==0==0==

After the evening meal was finished and the guests had departed for their own homes, Hannibal's father found him in the barn, sweeping out the stalls. He watched silently as his son diligently swept the dirty straw and other debris into the center of the barn and then out the door. The boy scattered fresh straw on the floor of each stall, checked that all the water buckets were full, and finally sat on a hay bale, waiting for his father to speak.

"Son," he began. "Your ma and I want to talk to you. Come back to the house."

Hannibal remained seated on the hay bale. He knew that going back into the house would subject him to a lecture and a punishment, and he had no desire for either.

"Hannibal, that was not a choice I gave you. Come with me, now."

The boy detected both exasperation and determination in his father's voice. Reluctantly, he got to his feet and slowly accompanied him into the house.

His mother was waiting in the parlor. Nervously, she looked first at her husband and then at her son, and thought she saw a touch of rebellion in his eyes. "Sit down, Hannibal."

Without a word, he made himself comfortable on the bench by the table, and waited for one of the adults to speak. He knew the less he said, the better off he'd be.

"Hannibal, is there anything wrong?" It was his father asking. "Something at school? Or something with Jed?"

Startled, he shook his head. "No, sir."

"Are you sure? Because if there is, we want to know so we can help you." That was his mother talking.

"Nothing's the matter," he assured them.

His parents looked at each other. His father spoke again. "Hannibal, today wasn't the first time your ma's caught you taking food you weren't supposed to. You know I work hard to support this family and your ma works real hard to cook nice meals for us all. When you go and eat things she's prepared special, that's not respectful. We're trying to raise you to know right from wrong. And that's wrong."

Hannibal nodded but still didn't say anything.

"I'm going to have to punish you so you learn your lesson well and don't do this anymore." His father sounded regretful. However, he knew that if he did not punish the boy now, things would only get worse. He looked at his son, knowing that what he was about to say would be a strong consequence. "For the next week, you won't be allowed to play with Jed Curry."

The boy's eyes widened but he carefully controlled his emotions and kept the tears from forming. He opened his mouth to protest then thought better of it. Instead, he asked, "Is the week five or seven days long?"

His mother looked at her husband, whose mouth twitched in amusement. Trust their son to try and find a loophole. "Five days?" she queried.

"Five days," he confirmed.

Hannibal ran up the ladder, flopped down on his bed, and cried himself to sleep.

==0==0==0==

"Jed, come on. We don't have much time."

"This isn't right, Han. I don't think we should be doin' this."

"No one'll ever know. Come on!"

The younger boy looked at his friend, who shrugged and ran around to the back of the store. Stifling the doubts in his head, Jed Curry followed. When he caught up to Hannibal, the other boy was already pushing open the unlocked door that led into the mercantile's storeroom. With a nervous glance first to his left and then to his right, Jed quickly snuck inside the building.

"Where do you suppose he keeps it?" Hannibal whispered.

"I dunno. Hurry up. I don't like bein' in here." Jed whispered back.

Scowling, the older boy walked around the room, investigating all the goods neatly stored on the shelves. He had to stand on his toes to see what was on the highest ones.

Jed stayed by the back door, ready to bolt if it seemed they were about to be caught.

"Found it!" Hannibal triumphantly held up the sticks of hard candy. "What flavor you want?"

"I don't care. Let's just go, all right?"

Hannibal looked at his friend and smiled. "Calm down. No one knows we're here. You want the peppermint or the cinnamon?" He held up the candy sticks and sniffed them. "I think I'll take the…"

Just then, the door leading into the mercantile crashed open.

"Run, Jed!" Needing no further encouragement, his friend took off. Hannibal wasn't so lucky.

"Oh, no you don't, you little thief!" The man grabbed Hannibal's shirt and held on to him despite all the wiggling and kicking the boy was doing. His muscles strong from lifting fifty-pound sacks of grain, the storekeeper had no difficulty lifting Hannibal off the ground and holding him at arm's length.

Eventually realizing that continued struggle was useless, the boy gave up. "All right. You can put me down now."

"You gonna run off, boy?"

"No."

Skeptically, the man released his prisoner, who immediately ran to the back door and was halfway through it when he was roughly pushed back inside by the man waiting there for just that possibility.

"A liar and a thief, is that it?" The storekeeper pursed his lips. "Let's see which upstanding citizen's whelp we have here. Make sure he don't run away again," he directed his assistant.

The man went back into the store to get a lantern and when he returned, Hannibal was sitting on the floor near a bolt of fabric.

"Get up," he ordered. "Let me get a good look at you."

Hannibal stood up and stared defiantly at the man who had captured him.

"Hannibal Heyes! What a surprise. Well, let's see what your father has to say about this. Come on." The merchant grasped Hannibal's hand and dragged him out the back door.

Glancing around, Hannibal was glad to see Jed hiding in the shadows of another store. As they passed him, the older boy gave his cousin a wink. Jed stared solemnly back at him.

==0==0==0==

"What do you have to say for yourself, young man?"

Hannibal stood, sullenly, in front of his father as both he and the storekeeper interrogated him. They were all at the Heyes homestead. One of his brothers had gotten his father from the field where he'd been working, and his mother listened from the kitchen, where she was busy preparing the midday meal.

"Answer him!" the merchant ordered.

"Ain't got nothing to say," Hannibal muttered.

The storekeeper cast a disgusted look at him, and an equally annoyed one at his father. He knew Heyes would protect his son but he also knew the boy needed a good scare to deter him from the path he was on. "I don't have any more time to waste. Enough coddling, Heye. I'm taking him over to the sheriff. He'll talk after a night in jail."

Hannibal cast a quick, fearful glance at his father. Would he really allow the sheriff to lock him up? He suddenly realized that he might have gone too far this time. Sneaking food from his own home or taking an extra pencil from a classmate and then lying about it was one thing. But stealing from the general store was turning out to be something quite different from the childish prank he'd thought it would be.

Hannibal was scared. He'd never been inside the sheriff's office and he had no desire to find out what it looked like now. He didn't want to be locked up like a criminal. He'd never live down the shame.

"I'm sorry," he mumbled.

"Speak up, boy; I didn't hear you," the storekeeper told him. Actually, he had heard him clearly enough but he wanted Hannibal to say it again. Maybe if he said it with more conviction, it would actually mean something to him.

Without looking up, he repeated, "I'm sorry."

"Don't be rude, Hannibal. Look at Mr. Carson when you're talking." His father almost smiled as he said the words. Rudeness was the least of his son's problems right now, he thought grimly.

"I'm sorry!" Hannibal yelled. "I won't do it again!" He ran out of his house and all the way over to Jed's place.

==0==0==0==

"You all right?"

"Yeah."

"So what happened?"

"After they caught me…" Hannibal swallowed. "Thanks for sticking around. You didn't have to, you know."

"That's what friends are for, Han."

"Yeah, but you could've been caught, too."

"Nah, I knew they'd be happy with just one of us."

The older boy smiled. "Smart thinking, Jed."

His cousin grinned at the praise, then got serious. "So what'd they do to you?" he asked again.

"They took me home and got my pa. I wasn't talking so they threatened to take me to the sheriff and put me in jail." Hannibal didn't let on how afraid he'd been.

Jed's blue eyes widened. "Your pa said that?"

"Well, no; it was Mr. Carson. But my pa didn't say anything against it," Hannibal said angrily. He was going to let himself get all riled up about that but Jed's next question stopped him.

"Han, why'd you want to do it, anyway?" Jed was looking at him all curious-like. He'd gone along with the plan only because he couldn't say no to his cousin's schemes. But he'd protested that it wasn't right and he still didn't understand why Han had wanted to break into the store and take the candy when they had enough money to buy a couple sticks of it proper.

Hannibal knew Jed deserved an honest answer. But he was having a hard time finding one. He sat by the edge of the creek, letting his feet dangle in the water, and thought hard. Jed sat next to him, feet also in the water, fishing pole on the ground nearby, waiting expectantly.

"I guess…" Hannibal shrugged.

"What, Han?"

"I don't think I rightly know, Jed." He faced his friend and earnestly tried to make him understand. Tried to make both of them understand. "I guess it's just because I could. I could do it and until today, I got away with it. It was easy and…"

Jed was staring at him, disbelief clear on his face. It made Hannibal uncomfortable but he owed it to him. If Jed had been caught, he would have been in big trouble and it would've been all his fault.

"Han, you're not a thief! You got to stop doin' it. I know most things are easy for you—wish they were for me, too—but that don't mean just 'cos they are, you got to do them all. You ain't goin' to steal no more, are you?" Jed pleaded.

For a long time, Hannibal sat by the creek, next to his best friend, and thought about what he'd said. Jed was right—just 'cos something was easy, that didn't mean he had to try it. He'd been caught this time, and he knew that when he returned home, his punishment was going to be severe, much worse than just not seeing Jed for a week.

"No, you're right," Hannibal Heyes told his cousin. "I'm not going to steal anything ever again."


End file.
